The Purpose of Salvation

When there was only God, He chose us before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless where? Before Him.

Another way of saying that is in His presence. God chose us before the foundation of the world to make us absolutely holy and completely blameless in His presence. That is to say, He chose to bring us to glory.

It's been called the greatest of all miracles. God's granting salvation to an unworthy sinner. And that right there, the fact that we are unworthy, helps us understand why the miracle of salvation is so great.

But what's the reason behind that gracious act? Why would God, who sees all of our sin and knows how undeserving we are, why would He save us? Today's message on grace to you will help answer that, as John MacArthur continues his study from Romans 8, looking at what you can expect to find true of a person who is held securely in the grip of God.

And now here's John MacArthur. We're going through the 8th chapter of Romans, Romans 8, 28 to 30, where it says, And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren, and whom He predestined, these He also called, and whom He called, these He also justified, and whom He justified, these He also glorified. Now this is a very familiar and a very important portion of Scripture that we have already been discussing. In fact, we've pretty well marched our way through verse 28.

Now we're going to look at verses 29 and 30, and that's going to take us into a discussion of foreknowledge and predestination primarily. And as we approach this subject, I have to confess to you that this is going to take us deeper than we can really go, and I'm the first to admit that. As we try to understand this vast, limitless, infinite truth with our puny minds, we're going to have some problems, problems which are resolved not by reason, problems which are resolved not by further information, but problems which are resolved by faith, trust. We're embarking on a journey into divine infinity, and no higher pursuit exists.

Now there are a lot of things like that that you can pursue and find yourself hopelessly wandering around in a state of confusion. For example, just think for a while about the fact that God always existed, and you're likely, if you do it too long, to find yourself under the bed saying the Greek alphabet even if you don't know it. To try to conceive of something that has no beginning, someone that has no beginning is beyond us. And then if you want another exercise in delineating the futility of your finite mind, just begin to think about the fact that you will live forever because you have no conception, no capability of conceiving in your mind something that doesn't have a beginning and an end. And that's just the very initial concepts about God, that is that He always was and always will be, and we can hardly handle those. Why would we think that we could somehow wrap our puny brains around infinity at the point of God's sovereign, unfolding purpose? We can't and so we have to, at the beginning, admit that we face great, immense limitations and the temptations, listen carefully, the temptations are going to be to think they're God's limitations, not ours because we are so prone to pride and so prone to define all things in terms of our own abilities. We tend to think the problem must be with God. Somehow He's not fair, or He's not just, or He's too fatalistic, or He's left us out of it, or on the other hand, He is just and He is loving and therefore He's given all the responsibility to us and He can't have determined all of this on His own.

It is, by the way, sacrilegious if you don't resist that temptation. The limitation is not on God, it's on us. To question the wisdom of God, to question the justice of God, to question the love of God, to question God's defining man as responsible, to question the punishment of God on man for exercising his choice to reject the gospel, to question God for any of those things is merely a manifestation of your ridiculously feeble and proud mind.

Now try not to make too many conclusions along the way. I'll try to give you a balanced perspective within the sense of our limitations and present as much Scripture as is available to us, no less and no more. We can't ultimately reconcile this great truth in our puny minds because we cannot grasp the infinite mind of God. Only faith can give us peace with this, okay? Only faith can give us peace with this. Now the general truth is this, the general truth given by the Holy Spirit is that God causes all things, okay?

That's what it says. And He causes all things to work together for our eternal good, our good being eternal glory. Why? Because that is His purpose. And if God causes that, it's going to happen.

Why? Verse 31, if God is for us, who in the universe could possibly be against us successfully? No one since God is superior. So we are secure eternally in the purpose of God. It is the purpose of God to save us eternally. This is not just taught in the 8th chapter of Romans.

It is taught as well in Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 5 or verse 4. Let's start there. Well, let's start in verse 3.

Why not? Because this is where it all begins. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. The source of all blessing is God. He blesses us. And then He starts to unfold those blessings. He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him.

That is a monumental statement. Before the foundation of the world, that means before there was a creation, before Genesis 1, 1, before anything was created, before space existed, before time existed, before matter existed. When there was only God, before angels existed, when there was only God, He chose us before the foundation of the world that we should be saved from sin?

No. That we should be holy and blameless where? Before Him.

Another way of saying that is in His presence. God chose us before the foundation of the world to make us absolutely holy and completely blameless in His presence. That is to say, He chose to bring us to glory. He didn't choose, and you must remember this, He didn't choose the beginning of our salvation. He purposed the end of it.

I don't understand why people miss this. Any fair understanding of Scripture leaves it so clear. Verse 5, He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself according to the kind intention of His will.

Again, we read the same idea. It was His will, it was His purpose to predestine us, which is another way of saying He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. And He chose to make us His sons through Jesus Christ, and then verse 6 says, to bring us to the praise of the glory of His grace. In other words, He chose to bring us to salvation and to the praise of the glory of His grace. That means He had to bring us all the way to glory. If we got lost along the way, people would say His grace was not sufficient, wouldn't they?

If God has the kind of saving grace that comes and goes and comes and goes and is gained and lost and captured and forfeited and back and forth, that's something short of a securing kind of grace, isn't it, in terms of praiseworthy character? So, He has chosen us, He has predestined us, and He has chosen us all the way to holiness and blamelessness in His presence, and He has predestined us all the way to the praise of the glory of His grace. Verse 7, we have in Him redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses. That means total and complete forgiveness of all our sins, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us. In other words, He has poured out a lavish kind of grace, and in that lavish grace is consummate and complete forgiveness of all sins, which guarantees our eternal glory. Because if all our sins are forgiven, then that secures our eternal glory. That's why we can say in Romans 8, 28, all things work together for good.

Even our sin activates God's grace, produces forgiveness, and ends in our eternal glory. And then in verse 8, in His wisdom and insight, verse 9, He made known to us the mystery of His will. What is the mystery of His will? Well, the mystery of His will is, again, here's the same idea, it's according to His kind intention, which He purposed in Christ. Here we are back to God's will, God's purpose, God's kind intention.

And what was it? To sum up, verse 10, middle of the verse, sum up all things in Christ, things in the heavens, and things upon the earth. In Him, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.

It's just repeating the same thing over and over again. He saved us, gave us an inheritance. That inheritance involves a predestination, again, according to His purpose, and according to that purpose, He works all things after the counsel of His will so that He might bring us to be the praise of His glory. The 14th verse, He has given us the Holy Spirit as a pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession to the praise of His glory. He will bring us to glory, He will redeem us fully, and the Holy Spirit is given to us as a guarantee, a pledge.

I mean, you cannot get around this great truth. God has a purpose, God has a will, God has a plan. Verse 5, God has a kind intention. Again, verse 9, according to His kind intention which He purposed. Verse 11, according to His purpose. Verse 14, a pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession to the praise of His glory. The purpose of God is to bring us to glory, and you cannot escape that.

It is everywhere in the New Testament teaching about salvation. In fact, look at chapter 2 for a moment, and we are familiar with verses 8 and 9, by grace you have been saved through faith, that not of yourselves is the gift of God, not of works that any man should boast. But verse 7 tells us why He saved us, in order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. You know why He saved us?

So that He could bring you to glory, which is the ages to come, and pour out all the surpassing riches of His grace in His kindness on you. You weren't saved just to help you bump along temporarily in this life if you could hang on to it. You were saved in order that you might be brought into the surpassing riches of His grace in His kindness in the ages to come. And since it isn't a matter of works to get saved, it's not a matter of works to stay saved, right? It was grace that saved you, it's grace that keeps you, and grace that brings you to glory. In fact, I think it's fair to say that salvation is not based on what man or woman does. And are you ready for this?

It's not even based on what a man or a woman decides in the purest sense. John 1, 12, as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name. Listen to this, who were born, that's speaking of their new birth, their salvation, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but what? Of God, of God. The reason we are confident in our eternal salvation is because that is the plan.

That is the plan. I mean, the natural man in 1 Corinthians 2, 14 can't understand the things of God, so he certainly can't save himself. He is really hopeless in making any effort to do that since he is blind and ignorant and willfully rebellious and hopelessly iniquitous. Jesus said in John 8, 43 to those around Him, He said, why do you not understand what I'm saying? It's because you can't hear My Word, because you're of your father the devil. And as long as you are dead in trespasses and sin, as long as you are blind, as long as you're of your father the devil, you cannot understand the truth.

It's not just a matter of you being smart enough to make the right choice. There has to be a mighty work of God. It's not of the will of man, it's the will of God.

And that is repeated over and over. But I want you to look at John 6 for just a moment. This is a very familiar text, but just to rehearse it briefly. John 6, 37 I think sums it up so well. All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me.

That statement somewhere ought to be locked into everyone's mind. All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me. In other words, the whole matter of salvation is initiated by the Father's will. All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me. Go down to verse 44. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws Him.

Now look at this. Nobody comes unless the Father who sent Me draws Him and I will do My best to hang on to Him till the end. Is that what it says?

No. I will what? Raise Him up at the last day. Nobody gets lost in the meantime. The whole matter of the security of the believer is clearly identified right here. They are by the will of God drawn to Christ who keeps them all and raises them up at the last day. Back at verse 39, and this is the will of Him who sent Me that of all that He has given Me, I lose none but raise Him up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him may have eternal life and I Myself will raise Him up on the last day. God's will is that whom He draws, Christ receives. Whom Christ receives, He keeps and whom He keeps, He raises to eternal glory.

That's His will. You remember that most notable section of the 17th chapter of John and I remind you of it because it's one of the most magnificent insights into this. Jesus was so conscious of His responsibility to hold on to believers that when He was going toward the cross, He realized there was going to be a problem because there was going to be a time on the cross. Remember when He said, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? There was going to be a time on the cross when He was going to be spiritually somehow alienated from God and He could not hold on to His own. Now that was a concern to Him, so He prays to the Father in John 17 and in verse 11, this is what He says. And He's anticipating the time on the cross, I'm no more in the world and yet they themselves are in the world and I come to Thee, Holy Father. Look at this, keep them in Thy name.

You know what He's really saying to the Father? Father, there's going to be a time when I'm not going to be able to hold on to them. Would You please take over during that time and keep them for Me? Verse 12, while I was with them, I was keeping them in Thy name which Thou gavest Me. I held on to them. That was Your will. That was Your purpose. That's what You said.

That's what You wanted and that's what I've done. I guarded them and not one of them perished, but the one who was supposed to perish, who never was a true child, a true believer. Scripture might be fulfilled referring to Judas. Jesus is saying, I kept them, Father, but there's going to be a time when I can't keep them, that time of sin-bearing on the cross and You've got to keep them for Me.

What a tremendous insight. Verse 15, He defines what He means and He also realizes He's going back to glory and He's not going to be there to be present and care for them. And He says, I do not ask You to take them out of the world but to keep them from the evil one. When He asks the Father to keep them, He means keep them from Satan.

In what sense? Let me tell you what Satan wants to do. Satan wants to do this. He wants to destroy saving faith. You need to understand that. That's the whole message of the book of Job.

Remember that? The whole point of the book of Job is not a man in suffering and a man and his counselors and a man who loses everything and gets more back. The story of the book of Job is this story. It is the story of the inability of Satan to destroy saving faith. Satan comes before the throne of God in the first couple of chapters. He says to God, the only reason anybody ever stays faithful to you, God, is because you bless them all the time and if you quit blessing them and life was tough enough, they'd curse you. And God says, okay, you'll take Job and do whatever you want to him and we'll see. And Satan assaults the life of Job in the most devastating ways imaginable. He loses everything.

I mean literally everything but his cantankerous wife who gave him bad advice like all the rest of the people around him. He loses all his children. They're all killed. He loses all of his crops. He loses his fortune. He loses his health, everything but his life and he would have perhaps liked to have lost that to get out of the absolute misery. He went from wealth to poverty.

He went from having a family to having absolutely none. He went from being a man of health to a man who was so full of boils and scabs, he was scraping them off with a broken piece of pottery in total pain and agony. But through it all, he never lost his faith in God. And the whole point is at the end of the book, he says, it's stronger than it's ever been.

I had heard of thee with the hearing in my ear. Now I see thee and I repent in dust and ashes. What happened was through all of this suffering, his faith didn't fail.

In fact, at one point he said, though he slay me, yet will I trust him. Through all of this suffering, his faith didn't fail. It was strengthened and God was proving the point, saving faith cannot be destroyed. The severer the trial, the stronger the faith. You see, that's why James said, count it all joy when you fall into various trials because that kind of experience has a positive effect, doesn't it?

Produces patience and patience has a perfect work. But Satan wants to destroy saving faith. That's what he wants to do. The father's plan is not to allow him to do it. And the father says, I will never allow you to be tempted above that you are what?

Able, but I'll always make a way of escape so that you may be able to bear it. The Lord will never allow you to go through something you can't endure and in the midst of it will always make a way of escape. The Lord will always provide the strength of the interceding Holy Spirit, the strength of the interceding Son to make sure that no matter what goes on, you are kept by the Father's power because that's His purpose. That's His plan, no matter what Satan wants to do. And so we see in John 17 15, Jesus saying, just protect them from the evil one. You're secure, beloved, because that's the Father's purpose, but you're secure because the Son and the Spirit are making sure that the Father's purpose is fulfilled and that the Spirit is constantly, relentlessly, unceasingly interceding for you from earth as He dwells within you and the Son is relentlessly interceding for you in the presence of God at the right hand of the throne and between the two of them, you're secure.

Why? Verse 24 of John 17, Father, I desire they also whom Thou has given Me be with Me where I am. I want to bring them to glory. You want to bring them to glory.

I want to bring them to glory. The Holy Spirit is great. The Holy Spirit is groaning for their glory. We saw that in Romans 8 how the whole creation is groaning and secondly, we are groaning for the redemption of our bodies. The whole creation is groaning for the glorious millennial earth.

We're groaning for our glorified bodies and the Holy Spirit is groaning also for our eternal glory. The Spirit wants it. The Son wants it.

The Father wants it. I want to bring them to glory to be where I am in order that they may behold My glory in Me. I want them to come to glory so they can see My glory. That's the plan.

Remember, I've told you this in the past. Salvation is all about God wanting to create and redeem a humanity, a group of human beings who could go to heaven for the purpose of glorifying the Son, right? And He says, I want the plan to come to pass. I want to see them come all the way to glory so they can behold My glory, the glory which You've given Me because You loved Me before the foundation of the world. Before the foundation of the world, remember, the Father because of His love for the Son said, I'm going to give you a redeemed humanity.

I'm going to bring them all the way to glory. They're going to come to glory for the express purpose of praising and glorifying Your great name. That was the way the Father expressed His love to the Son, by giving Him a redeemed humanity. And the Father's plan was to choose who they would be, to save them, and then the Son was to provide the sacrifice for that salvation in the Son and the Spirit, an intercessory work by which they keep those people secure and bring them all the way to glory. And Jesus did His part, is doing His part, as is the Spirit, and the purpose of God will stand. That's Grace to You with John MacArthur.

Thanks for being with us. Today's study, titled The Grip of God, highlights the blessing of knowing that if God has saved you, He will never let you go. Now, John, your text today was Romans 8.

Your subject, the sovereignty of God, and I noticed that you spent a lot of time in the sermon going beyond Romans 8, and I want you to talk about that strategy, studying multiple passages in order to understand one particular portion of Scripture. Is that a technique that is best left to pastors and Bible scholars, or should we all be studying that way? That is the only way to study the Bible. You have one author, God, and the Scripture is consistent. It doesn't contradict at any point, because God is a single author.

Every word is true, and the Spirit of God has inspired every word in the original autographs, and that's been protected by the Spirit of God down to the translations we have today. The only way to really understand Scripture is to understand it in the full dimension of the Revelation. In other words, what you begin to see in the book of Genesis or in the Pentateuch or in the Old Testament is going to be consistent in terms of doctrine all the way to the end when you get to the book of Revelation. So being able to connect the Scripture is critical, and in order to do that, you have to take whatever text you're looking at, whatever verse you're looking at, and find out where else in the Bible is this being discussed so that I can get the big picture. A way to say it is this, the Bible is its own best interpreter. Let me say that again, the Bible is its own best interpreter. The Bible interprets itself by its consistency as you begin to understand what is being taught all across Scripture.

Now you say, well, how can I acquire that ability? Well, you can just make it simple. Get a MacArthur study Bible, and the footnotes will do it for you. The footnotes, that's what I've done in those footnotes, is take a passage, explain the meaning of it, and then show how that meaning is consistent all throughout Scripture.

You have cross-references, and you also have Scripture references that deal with the same idea or the same truth. So 25,000 footnotes at the bottom of each page in the Bible. The MacArthur study Bible is really a full library of Bible study tools in one volume. You can get it in the New American Standard, the New King James, the ESV. Shipping in the U.S., of course, is always free. Order a MacArthur study Bible and begin to put the Bible together, put the pieces together to get the full understanding of the glorious truth revealed there.

That's right. With its detailed study notes, 25,000 of them, the MacArthur study Bible has been instrumental in helping generations of believers understand God's Word and apply its truth to their lives. To get a MacArthur study Bible for yourself or for a loved one, contact us today. You can order by calling 800-55-GRACE or go to our website, gty.org. Again, this study Bible is available in hardcover, leather, premium goatskin, and it comes in the New American Standard, the New King James, and the English Standard versions of Scripture.

Reasonably priced, shipping is free. To get your copy, call 800-55-GRACE or you can order online at gty.org. And friend, as we've mentioned many times before, your letters are a great encouragement to us.

So if John's teaching has helped you understand true worship, shown you the power of God's Word, or maybe even led to your salvation, would you let us know? Send your letter to Grace To You, Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412. Or you can email us at letters at gty.org. That's the email address one more time, letters at gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and the entire staff, I'm Phil Johnson reminding you to watch Grace To You television this Sunday on DirecTV Channel 378, or check your local listings for Channel and Times, and then be here every day next week when John continues his study, The Grip of God, with another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You.